Louisiana’s attorney general, along with counterparts in Alabama and Arkansas, has filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the abortion “shield laws” of New York, California and Massachusetts.
Attorney General Liz Murrill said the laws, which grant immunity to doctors in the Democratic-led states who prescribe certain abortion medications remotely, violate the Constitution and federal law and prevent states with abortion bans from enforcing their own laws.
“We want to be able to enforce our laws within the boundaries of our states, and they have decided that they don't like our laws,” said Murrill in a press conference Wednesday.
It’s not the first time Louisiana has clashed with New York and California over abortion medications. Murrill has attempted to prosecute physicians in both states who prescribed pills by mail to Louisiana, but Gov. Kathy Hochul (NY-D) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (CA-D) refused to extradite the defendants, citing abortion access protection laws in their states.
Many Democratic-controlled states enacted so-called “shield laws” in the years following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which eliminated the nationwide right to access an abortion.
Louisiana and more than a dozen other states have since enacted strict, near-total abortion bans that stop the procedure at all stages of pregnancy, with very narrow exceptions. But residents have continued to access mifepristone and misoprostol, the two medications commonly prescribed to end a pregnancy, from providers in other states where the procedure remains legal.
“We will continue to take every action that we can take to try and enforce our laws and to make sure that it is the United States Supreme Court that will decide whether New York, California, and Massachusetts can attack our sovereignty,” said Murrill.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, in a statement, called Murrill’s new lawsuit an attempt to “punish our doctors for providing legal health care.”
“New York has always been a safe haven for reproductive freedom,” James said. “It was true before Roe, it has been true since Dobbs, and it will remain true long after this lawsuit inevitably fails. I will fight with everything in my power to defend our shield law and protect every provider and patient who depends on it.”
The lawsuit also drew pushback from abortion rights advocates.
“These southern states are going after abortion pills in every way they can, and this is perhaps their most brazen attempt yet,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the New York City-based Center for Reproductive Rights. “It’s part of the fearmongering campaign around abortion pills, this time using the Supreme Court as a megaphone to spread that fear and misinformation.”
Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas on Wednesday also filed legal action in the Western District of Louisiana against 30 individuals and organizations that advertise, prescribe and ship abortion drugs into the three anti-abortion rights states.
At Wednesday’s announcement, the attorneys general of Alabama, Steve Marshall, and Arkansas, Tim Griffin, were also in attendance.
